“Coke had agreed to a pilot project in July 2014, internal documents show, and had hoped Palantir would, among other things, be able to help revive sales of Diet Coke in North America through analysis of customer data. But Coca-Cola balked at Palantir’s price tag, which would climb to $18 million for the fifth year of the contract, according to emailed notes on the January meeting.

[…]

Kimberly-Clark was getting cold feet by early 2016. In January, a year after the initial pilot, Kimberly-Clark executive Anthony J. Palmer said he still wasn’t ready to sign a binding contract, meeting notes show. Palmer also “confirmed our suspicion” that a primary reason Kimberly-Clark had not moved forward was that “they wanted to see if they could do it cheaper themselves,” Kelt told colleagues in January.

Seeming to echo Coca-Cola’s concerns about price, Palmer said that $18 million in a single year would be Kimberly-Clark’s third-highest expense, behind commodities and marketing, according to Kelt.”